The Frankish Reich

I just think they liked the idea of something like the Washington Senators or the Washington Generals, but for obvious reasons those may have been a little too accurate. Admirals (too maritime), Colonels (too Kentucky) ... wait, how about Commanders?

There's been a lot of Tyreek Hill types, both before and after Tyreek Hill. Tavon Austin, KJ Hamler (I still like him if healthy), etc. etc. Tyreek 2.0 hunting is probably not a sound draft strategy, unless you're talking about taking a flyer on a 5th rounder ... which is exactly what Tyreek was.

He could still be that. As you suggest, there just isn't a whole lot of American football experience there ... 29 years old, but probably more like most 3rd year players in terms of football development. It's still a longshot, but even now he's a good situational pass rusher and the Commanders seem to be a good fit. Good luck, Efe, and thanks for the memories (or was it just one memory?)

$10 million per victim, with $10 million left over all for himself?

Chances that any of the listed players are actually drafted by the Bills, in any round: < 50% You might as well predict the exact score of the first Bills-Patriots meeting next year. I enjoy reading about how certain players would be a good fit, but 7 rounds of a mock draft? Really? We are officially in what the Brits call the silly season.

Somehow I had forgotten that Bud Wilkinson ever coached in the NFL. I'm old enough that I ought to remember that. Unless of course the problem is I'm too old to remember that .... It was the St. Louis Cardinals, who were pretty much the definition of a completely nondescript team back then.

Meyer was a "pure" college coach with no NFL assistant experience whatsoever. I'll admit it - he kind of fooled me, beginning with making Utah relevant. But in retrospect, yeah, he's a recruiting force only. I can't help but assume that he mastered the dark arts of promising and delivering for recruits the kinds of things coaches aren't supposed to promise and deliver. We'll continue seeing a lot of guys like Nathaniel Hackett and Doug Marrone get jobs (the guys who build mixed college/NFL assistant resumes) but I kind of think Meyer is the last time we see one of these full college guys get a head coaching job.

This IS the process. You build a core of professional, hardworking players to develop a culture of winning and accountability. Once that's in place, you supplement it with star playmakers, even those who've been accused of being divas with their previous teams. Otherwise you don't make it over that final hump.

It's about time someone brought that back!

Remember the first half of 2020 (I know, I know, that's like a year and half ago) when Russell was the favorite to win the MVP? Yes, my eyes tell me he's lost a bit - particularly that evasiveness that allowed him to extend plays - but he's not at all old by modern QB standards, and I'm guessing he has plenty left in the tank. The Broncs O line is solid, Javonte Williams is his new Marshawn, and there's some playmakers there (Albert O. at TE, Sutton, Hamler if he's healthy, Jeudy if he can hold onto the damn ball). I don't know that it all works like it did with Peyton and Brady and Stafford, but it'll be pretty damn interesting to watch.

9th overall pick this year is the biggest part of the return for the Seahawks. In a year that kind of looks like the 2014 QB draft (EJ Manuel in case you forgot). If this works for the Broncs, the next 1st rounder will be like getting a high 2nd. Shelby Harris: really solid player. He'll be missed by the Broncos. Noah Fant: uber talented, but quite frankly was outplayed by Albert O. (don't make me try to spell it), who looks really good at TE. Drew Lock: like trading EJ Manuel c. 2016. There's still a slight chance he'll be a late bloomer, but there's a far better chance he's completely out of football by 2023.

Exactly. Did not take a meaningful snap all season. There's some real Teddy Bridgewater money waiting for you, Mitch!

Pacta sunt servanda.

No, I'm not (is anyone?) advocating for a military intervention. But what we've seen is the classic formula for war - a war that, according to Putin himself, won't be limited to eastern Ukraine, or even the whole of Ukraine. And the classic formula is this: an aggressive regime coupled with ineffective deterrence. What negative consequences did Putin suffer from the taking of Crimea? (I'll wait while everyone looks that one up because I'm coming up with a big "None.") Putin may be a dictator, but he's a dictator propped up by a lot of corrupt oligarchs living in places like London and Miami and New York. We can make life very difficult for them, both financially and in other ways. If it doesn't happen now, I fully expect the Baltics to be next.

Re: the Baltics. There's something very similar about China (somehow the new villain of the right wing, with a more tepid response from the left) and Russia (vice versa). Both dictatorships are paranoid about countries/regions showing that economic success and democratization are fully compatible. Hong Kong and Taiwan prove that with respect to core China, so they must be suppressed. For people who haven't been paying attention, take a look at Estonia. A remarkable success story - in some respects, they're building a whole new style of libertarian government coupled with economic freedom. Putin says they're really Russian, and depending on what that means, maybe they are. But if they are, they are a symbol of how a Russian people can overcome their past and actually become a leader in innovation in government and economy. Those are dangerous thoughts when you're a dictator; they could spread soon enough to your own people ("hey, if Estonia can have those kinds of freedoms and experience an economic boom, why not us?").

I don't even recognize who these Republican would-be presidents are anymore. Obviously a recent interview because we have the newly emaciated Pompeo on camera. Why, in this current situation, would you ever say "I have enormous respect" for Putin? Pompeo was Sec of State - he knows that words matter. Somehow these proto-candidates think that there's something wrong with simply saying that Putin's territorial ambitions threaten world peace and security.

Putin is now working on his second phase of his justification for war (or, if you prefer, annexing part or all of Ukraine and thus leading to at least a limited war, and maybe a much more serious war). Post-Crimea: This clearly violated the post-Soviet Minsk Agreement, in which nuclear weapons stationed by the Soviets in non-Russian republics (Ukraine, Kazhakstan, Belarus) were "repatriated" to the Russian Federation in exchange for (among other things) Russian recognition of new international boundaries, including the Ukraine-Russian border. Putin claimed the Ukrainian democracy movement (that is, movement away from being a Russian puppet state to being a functioning democracy) was in essence a "revolution," such that the agreement with the pre-revolution Ukrainian state was null and avoid. Therefore, Russia no longer needs to recognize those 1994 borders. Now: Putin is moving into the second phase of that theory in action. Eastern Ukraine (we're not sure how much yet) is now considered historically and culturally "Russia" and he intends to annex it under Russian law. Of course, if Ukraine resists with military force, he'll have his casus belli and may use that to overthrow the entire Ukrainian government by force. I have some friends from the Baltic states, and they know very well that they're next. Not to sound, umm, uncaring, but ... Eastern Ukraine alone really isn't that big a deal. But we've seen that Putin's bizarre dream of reconstituting the Soviet Empire comes with a long timeline. He's coming close to annexing (ostensibly by choice) Belarus and maybe Kazakhstan, and by taking a large swath of Ukraine (by might). As Biden said about something very different about a dozen years ago, "this is a big effin' deal." How the US, Europe, and the rest of the world respond now may very well dictate how far Putin takes those Soviet dreams of his in the next few years.

Simmons was a talented blogger-writer who could churn out 5,000 words worth of humorous takes on sports and pop culture. I didn't read him religiously, but when he was on he was fun to read. His Grantland was an attempt to bring back longform sports writing for the internet age. A noble project that largely succeeded on a journalistic basis, but wasn't sufficiently profitable on an economic basis. His Ringer is a dumbed down Grantland. It skewed younger. It skewed more toward the attention-challenged, and more toward pointless things like serious analysis of the deep themes developed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (I'll save him some time: we kick around concepts and focus group them based on what will sell the most tickets.) And he's basically given up writing in favor of podcasting. Why write anymore? It takes more time, you have to actually, you know, compose sentences and paragraphs and pay attention to grammar and all of that. And then no one has the patience to read all that anymore. So you just turn on a microphone and shoot the breeze with the latest version of a young Bill Simmons. And you know what? People are willing to pay a crapload of money for doing that, at least for now. No Simmons hate from me ... just boredom with his stream of consciousness overgrown frat boy act, and a little tinge of disappointment that he wasn't able to make serious sports writing a thing again. Somewhere Frank Deford sheds a tear ...

My opinion of Rodgers has plummeted. No, I don’t mean the vaccine thing. I mean dumping Olivia Munn for Shailene Woodley.

I'd be more interested if NFL teams were involved, lending players to the spring league like we see with 2-way NBA contracts or MLB affiliate contracts. Will I watch a minor league football game this spring without some kind of Bills connection? No. Would I watch if (assume a slightly different world here) Jake Fromm was starting for the Jr. Bills, handing off to Christian Wade? Yeah. Well, at least for a little while.

No. 1. The NFL has never been a better product in terms of sheer entertainment value. The playoffs and Super Bowl this year proved it. Close games, incredible individual athleticism, interesting matchups of team strategies. 2. The NFL continues to dominate the full U.S. calendar year. Here we go in the "offseason" - free agency, the draft, etc., etc. 3. Competing sports are waning. College basketball and MLB spring training should own March-April; one is a shell of its former self, the other won't even happen this year (and is increasingly becoming a niche spectator sport, albeit a big niche). It's not until NBA playoffs come that there's real competition for the attention of sports fans (NHL too, but that has always been more of a niche) Amazingly the NFL weathered COVID (including fanless games) and all sorts of other issues to emerge stronger than ever. I might not like how they do certain things, but I gotta hand it to them ... big picture, they sure as hell know what they're doing.

So you're saying you'd rather wait for the Piemonte Trophy to be awarded? I think you get that when you finish with the highest FPI. It involves a case of Barolo and a box of truffles. Much higher end. But, but, but ... I think (like the infamous Pythagorean record in baseball) it correlates better with next season success than actual won/loss does. So since we're all about next year now, I am deeply offended by anyone calling cause for optimism "meaningless crap."

Yep. The "3 yards and a cloud of dust" purists will gladly watch a new school 45-42 shootout. The casual fan will not stay tuned to a 9-6 field position/special teams thriller.

It's an interesting result. Seat of the pants analysis: a lot of this has to do with the percentage of foreign-born (excluding Canadian) residents. American football, is, well (North) American. Los Angeles simply doesn't have the demographics to drive Top 10 football viewership. Many of the rust belt cities do.

In 1972, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai was asked about the impact of the French Revolution. “Too early to say,” he replied. With that in mind: the jury's still out on whether dumping Josh Rosen for Kyler Murray was a good idea.